


Box Lunch (And Other Bad Food In The Apocalypse)

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Holding [23]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefighters, End of the World, Established Relationship, M/M, Plague, Some angst, but not the usual kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 07:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: “I hear something.”It’s said in a tone that means neither of them can stop him right now, they just need to follow along and help. Patrice hasn’t heard that version of Brad in a very long time, a mix of firm but caring, the way he would tell parents not to run back into a fire because the children were already being looked for. Brad’s never serious, except for important things. Whatever he thinks he hears, he’s clearly deemed it important.





	Box Lunch (And Other Bad Food In The Apocalypse)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [elysian fields](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17302313) by Anonymous. 



> Sequel to [Penicillin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19042591).
> 
> I was on the fence about whether or not to post this, but Bruins_Anonymous on Tumblr picked through it for me and convinced me to with some excellent feedback, so here it is.
> 
> I didn't set this up to be posted right as the Bruins lost the Stanley Cup, it just kind of happened by accident I swear.
> 
> Also how the hell is this fic twice as long as the first one I did?!

“Oh man, it’s so good to go outside again,” Brad comments less than five minutes into their walk.

“It’s because the guys wanted some quiet away from you,” Pasta chirps.

“Be nice,” Patrice insists. “He needs fresh air and we need to get back to normal.”

“Whatever. Why apartment buildings? Aren’t they dangerous?”

“Not as dangerous as hospitals,” Brad answers. “I can’t believe you guys went and did something exciting like that without me!”

“Well, that’s what you get for catching the plague,” Pasta shoots back.

“Guys, enough, okay?” Patrice interrupts. “Save the chirping for when we get back.”

“But he’s just so chirpable,” Brad grins.

They mostly stay quiet after that, though, trying to pay attention to the world around them. There could be people, there could be feral pets. Surprisingly, the few people they’ve ever encountered while out scavenging were never hostile, just afraid. For the first few weeks the eight of them had holed up in the station until the shooting stopped. Now, a year and four months after the grid shut down, the violent groups and looters have long since finished killing each other or fleeing. There are only individuals, a lone person who had no idea what to do back then and so continues to stay in Boston, picking for scraps. The main danger comes from former house animals, especially dogs, roaming in packs. (Fairly often they end up killing said animals and then bringing them back to the station to be rendered into food.)

Then, as they’re passing a building Patrice knows has already been emptied, Brad stops and makes hand gestures to get them to stop with him.

“What?” Pasta whispers.

“Shhh,” Brad hisses, closing his eyes for a second and tilting his head slightly. After about three seconds he opens them again and heads for that building.

“Marchy, what is it?” Patrice demands, worried.

“I hear something.”

It’s said in a tone that means neither of them can stop him right now, they just need to follow along and help. Patrice hasn’t heard that version of Brad in a very long time, a mix of firm but caring, the way he would tell parents not to run back into a fire because the children were already being looked for. Brad’s never serious, except for important things. Whatever he thinks he hears, he’s clearly deemed it important.

Inside the building, Patrice can hear it too, a noise that always scared him whenever he went inside a structure fire for search and rescue operations. It’s the sound of a child crying. The three of them charge up the stairs until they figure out which floor it is, and in a dusty room at the end of the hall is a five- or six-month-old infant, wrapped in a blanket with several cans of baby formula and two bottles piled up nearby.

“Holy shit,” Pasta breathes.

“Who the hell just leaves a baby here like this?” Brad growls, as if there’s someone around to answer that question. “Fuck, man.”

“We can’t just leave it here,” Patrice points out.

“Obviously,” Brad snorts. He shoves the cans into Pasta’s arms and then pulls his Swiss army knife off his belt, scratching _baby is safe, come to the fire station_ into the floor and then scooping up the baby in question. “Okay… let’s bring her back, we can go out and look for shit to take care of her after.”

“How do you know it’s a her?” Pasta questions.

“She’s wearing a pink onesie. Come on, let’s go.”

* * *

Needless to say, the guys are beyond shocked when they come back like this.

“Uh… so, I really hate to be that guy, but how are we going to take care of this baby?” Charlie asks.

They’re all sitting around the table and Brad’s feeding the baby; they don’t have diapers and her clothes were disgusting, so she’s just wrapped in a towel for now until they can get things figured out.

“You don’t have to do anything, Chuckie, I got this.”

“Marchy…”

“What? How are you all so fucking terrified? She can’t hurt you,” he grins.

Z and Kevan are just looking on with sad expressions, neither saying anything for once. They used to have kids and it’s clearly distressing them. Patrice, on the other hand, can’t stop staring at his boyfriend. Because he can already tell - Brad doesn’t expect anyone to come back for this infant, so she belongs to him and that’s pretty much the end of it. His boyfriend has a baby, now.

“We can’t just keep a baby here!” Charlie protests. “We’ve got like, literally nothing that we’ll need to take care of her.”

“Well, we’re gonna go out and find all the shit we need,” Brad answers. He sets aside the now-empty bottle and burps the baby against his shoulder, which makes everyone gawk. “What? My sister has kids, I already know all this shit… I’m not as useless as you guys seem to think I am.”

“Okay, so… we now have this baby here. What about resources?” Krej asks, because apparently between two lieutenants and a captain he’s the only one of them who knows how to be a responsible leader right now. “Assume, for a minute, this baby stays here. When she needs hard food, how much extra vegetables will that take? We’re already covering the roof here and at the police station. We’ll have to filter extra water, too. Marchy, don’t look at me like that, I’m not saying ditch the baby. I’m trying to think how we can get the means to feed her.”

“We can put plastic crates on top of the engines,” Patrice suggests. “They’re just sitting out there rusting, we might as well grow potatoes and carrots on top of them. We could probably hang containers out the windows of the police station to catch more rain, too.”

“We’ll have to go find clothes and shit,” Brad points out. “In different sizes, too. Diapers if we can find them… anyone remember seeing any around lately?”

“Not in stores, no,” Pasta answers slowly. “But I have seen some.”

“Great, where?”

“At the hospital, when we were looking for Tylenol for you. We’d have to go back there to get them.”

“Does this count as an emergency?” Kevan wonders. “We only risked the hospital because Marchy was dying, and that place is still majorly contaminated.”

“All the supermarkets are empty,” Matt answers. “All the gas stations, all the pharmacies. The only reason the hospitals aren’t totally cleaned out too is because of that contamination - most people couldn’t stand the smell or the sight of all those bodies, so only really stupid or really desperate people went in. Right?” He looks at Patrice.

“Yeah, something like that. There are still tons of supplies in the hospital, it’s just mostly drugs and wound care items that are missing. But the linens are still there, oxygen tubing, things nobody would steal. And diapers. Gloves. That kind of stuff.” He stops and thinks for a second. “Hey, Z… maybe we should just do a big clear-out of that place. Then we won’t have to keep running back there and wasting HAZMAT suits, we’ll already have everything.”

“But how can we carry it all back?”

“Do it in shifts,” Krej shrugs. “Three of us stay here, the other five go. Two suit up and go in to find everything, one waits outside with the pressure washer for decon, and the other two run back and forth. Once they get tired, they’ll switch with two of the guys here. Bergy and Pasta have already been inside the hospital so they’ve already seen everything, they suit up and find all the shit. I’ll stay out and decon. Kevan and Matt will be the first pair that runs, then Z and Charlie. Brad stays here with the baby. Think it could work?”

“That sounds pretty good,” Z agrees, nodding slightly. “Only thing is, what if Bergy and Pasta get too tired?”

“We’ll be fine,” Patrice insists. “We had a stretcher last time so we could wheel everything around and not have to carry it, we’ll do that again. But we should write up a list first of everything that we think we’ll need from there, it’ll save time.”

“Good. We’ll start this tomorrow and once it’s done we can work on Bergy’s water idea. Everyone go get some rest.”

“Will you be okay staying here all day?” Patrice asks as he and Brad head for the stairs.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well… you won’t have anything to do.”

Brad snorts. “You’re kidding, right? Do you have any idea how much work babies are, Pat? I’ll have _plenty_ to do. And actually… next time we’re out scavenging we should keep an eye out for books about this shit, just in case I’m remembering wrong. And like, baby books. So we can read to her.”

 _We._ Apparently Patrice has been roped into this now, too. Five weeks into their relationship and they’re going to raise a baby together.

“Marchy…”

“Yeah?”

Patrice sighs. “Nothing. Never mind.” He puts an arm around Brad’s shoulders and kisses his temple. “You make my life so much more interesting than it probably should be.”

“I don’t think you mean that as a compliment, but I’m gonna take it as one anyway,” Brad grins.

“It was kind of a compliment.”

“Are you just freaking out because I want you to co-parent?”

“Yes! A little bit!” he answers, probably louder than he should. “For one thing, it’s been what, six hours since you found this baby? For another thing, we haven’t actually been together that long. For a third thing, this is still… not actually _our baby._ Someone could show up in a couple days to come get her. For a fucking _fourth_ thing, you never even asked me first, you just voluntold me that I’m going to help you with this! So, yes, Brad! I’m freaking out! Sue me!”

Brad, because he’s Brad, starts laughing. “Okay. I don’t even know where to start with all that, but I’ll try… I didn’t ask because usually when I do things you just always have my back and I never needed to ask before. Also you can’t just expect anyone to come get her, because it’s a fucking crapshoot if the person who left her there is even still alive. And besides those things, why does it matter how long we’re together, Bergy? If you wanna go try and find someone else be my guest, but I’m pretty sure Grindr isn’t still up and running, so good luck with that.” Then he makes a face. “Uh, but if you do leave me, please be nice about it, it’ll make me really sad. And at least pretend it’s not because of a baby.”

“Oh my god, Bradley, I’m not dumping you,” Patrice insists. He pulls Brad into a hug, careful of the infant now situated between their chests. “It’s just a lot at once. And you really can’t get too attached for at least a month, because someone could show up.” He kisses Brad’s forehead. “I know you get anxious about things, probably more than you even let anyone see, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you let me have a panic attack once in awhile too, is it?”

Brad’s laughing again at that, which was the idea, and rests his face against Patrice’s throat. “Yeah, I guess you’re allowed once in awhile to get hysterical about something. Thank you for not leaving me, Pat.”

“I would never.”

“Awesome.” They pull apart again. “Alright, I gotta figure out a place for her to sleep…”

* * *

“You’re really going to be okay?” Patrice asks again.

“Yes, Bergy, I’m fine.” Brad’s clearly trying to look annoyed even though he’s preening at the attention.

“Really?”

“Yes! Bergy! I’m fine!” Brad yells, still through a huge grin. “What do you think’s gonna happen without you here to stop it, huh?”

“Last time I left without you, you almost died.”

“Yeah, because I was literally already dying. I’m fine, Pat, seriously. Go run around stepping in piles of old guts and stuff.”

“There weren’t any - ugh, never mind. You’re exasperating.”

“Uh-huh. You love me anyway, though, right?” Brad asks, leaning up for a kiss.

“Yeah,” Patrice agrees, not really paying attention to what he’s saying anymore and accepting the kiss before leaving. He has the list of desired supplies in his shirt pocket, there’s an unopened Tyvek suit in his backpack. Patrice is still nervous leaving Brad there, something could happen, what if something happens, what if he loses Brad, what then-

“Bergy,” Krej murmurs next to his right shoulder, “you need to relax.”

“What?”

“It’s going to be okay.”

Patrice hates this, how the guys know him too well and can always see what he’s thinking right on his face. It’s embarrassing when all he wants to do is have a nice quiet freak out in the privacy of his own head.

At least the annoying three-hour hike to Mass General immediately distracts him from his fear, because none of the cars and police barricades have moved in the five weeks since he last made this journey. Once there, he and Pasta don their gear just like last time, and they head in through the ambulance bay. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been to the hospital between these two visits, which is good; they’re more likely to find the stuff they need.

It’s already taking longer than the first time, not just because they’re in less of a hurry but also given that they’re looking for things besides Tylenol and IV bags. Now, they’re grabbing linens, towels, chucks… as much as they can carry, really. They don’t want to have to come back here. Things like oxygen tubing are the only items they don’t pick up, because those aren’t necessary. It takes three trips to clear the first floor.

“We should’ve done this from the top floor first,” Patrice comments as they’re finally heading for the stairs.

“Why?”

“Because then as we get more tired, we’re not working as far from the exit.”

“Then why don’t we just go to the top now and do that?”

“Good point.”

This means they get to climb all the way up to the fourteenth floor and start grabbing things to pile them on the stretcher. Even the offices get raided - pens and paper (as long as they’re packaged in plastic) are great for keeping track of parts they need to keep the damn generator running, and for which of their vegetables aren’t doing so well at a given time. Some doctors kept cup noodles in their desks, or those packets of flavoring for water bottles, little go-packs of Advil, extra undershirts. Patrice would love to gather up the fiction novels he finds there, but those can’t be deconed. They’ll have to find entertainment elsewhere.

Instead of running up and down fourteen flights of stairs, they fill the gurney and dump everything in a heap by the stairwell - it all has to be deconed anyway, so there’s no point trying to keep it organized. There’s really nothing breakable either, so once the floor is cleared they drop everything to the bottom through the gap between the railings.

Using a crowbar, Patrice manages to break open a locked door - and it’s a janitor’s closet, loaded with industrial-grade concentrated disinfectant.

“Hey, Pasta!” he bellows through the voice diaphragm of his respirator. “Get a load of this!”

“Holy shit! We can use this to do laundry! Like, for real do laundry!”

Every bottle and can of wipes is grabbed, but these aren’t thrown down the stairs because they’ll break open, so the disinfectant supplies are piled into a large shipping box and left on the landing. After that, a ridiculous chunk of time is spent busting open every janitor’s closet on the floor and gathering up cleaning items. These are immediately carried down the stairs and outside to the other firemen, who are delighted.

“I love you guys, this is amazing,” Matt grins as he sees what Krej is disinfecting.

“We know,” Pasta replies smugly before they head back in.

They manage to clean out down through the tenth floor before they have to stop and get decontaminated just so they can take off their suits and piss. Patrice feels gross the second air hits his skin, and he’s glad that besides his boots he elected to strip down to his boxers before putting the Tyvek coverall on in the first place because his sweat could fill a small swimming pool by now.

“Having fun yet?” Krej asks sarcastically, handing each of them a bottle of water.

“Oh sure,” Pasta grins. “We got the fucking Cadillac of soap concentrate now, imagine how good our sheets are gonna smell after this!”

“Fuck the sheets, think of our socks and underpants,” Krej laughs. “They put up with _way_ more punishment.”

“Guys, can we please focus?” Patrice asks. “I really don’t want to spend all week here.”

“Chill, Bergy. Brad’s fine, I promise,” Krej answers. He digs through the pile briefly - “Here, I think this one’s dry.” - and tosses him a recently-decontaminated hospital towel.

It’s thin and scratchy, but it’s so, so clean. Patrice wipes his face first and then everything else, and it’s such a nice feeling just to use a towel that’s actually clean for the first time in over a year. He wipes out the inside of his suit, too, and then grabs a washcloth for his respirator and hands them back to Krej to be deconed a second time.

“Thanks for that, it helped a lot,” he offers as he’s zipping himself back into his suit.

“Sure. Now I get to touch your sweaty nasty cloth.”

Patrice and Pasta re-tape, then head back in to start on the ninth floor.

* * *

Patrice wakes up without opening his eyes and starts to get up, but pain spears through every cell of his body and he immediately collapses with a groan back onto his bunk.

“Go back to sleep, Bergy,” comes Brad’s voice in a gentle whisper from directly behind his head.

“Mph, hurts too much, can’t get comfortable,” he mumbles.

“You sure you don’t wanna go back to sleep?”

“Can’t.”

“Okay.” Brad moves and Patrice realizes his boyfriend is being the big spoon. “So what happened? Pasta came back helping Kevan carry you…”

“Oh. Uh. I was just so tired, and… we were taking out the last two boxes and I was trying to remember if it was the third or fourth morning, and then… thank god this happened after Krej finished deconing me, but I threw up in my respirator before I could take it off and then suddenly the ground was giving a high-five to my face. Now I’m here. So… overworked is the best word for it, I think. I should be okay in a few hours.”

“Yeah, you slept all of yesterday too, so I should fucking think so, Bergy. So how come Pasta was fine?”

“He stopped and took naps. I kept working.”

“Dumbass.”

“Yeah.”

Brad kisses the back of his neck. “I told them that since you worked so hard you should get to have one of those things of Ramen, then you can at least have something besides canned beans and fried dog.”

“Thanks, Marchy, you’re the best,” he smiles. He rolls onto his back with a growl of discomfort and finally looks at his boyfriend. “So nothing happened while I was gone?”

“Lynn kept grabbing my nose when I got my face too close to her.”

“Huh?”

Brad grins. “Well… she can’t tell me her name, so I’m just calling her after my mom.”

Oh. Right. The baby. “Cute. How’s she doing?”

“Z’s watching her for me until you get up for real. I think he’s really sad about it, but it’s nice of him to help.”

“God, Bradley, don’t you think that’s just a little mean?”

“He offered, and I asked him like five times if he really wanted to. On the last one he just said ‘go look after your boyfriend Marchy,’ so I did. He’s still captain, so I do what he says.”

“You never do what anyone tells you to do,” Patrice laughs.

“I do when it’s important. You’re important, Pat.”

“Okay.” Patrice kisses him briefly. “Help me get up, I’m hungry.”

Brad carefully gets him to his feet and he’s pleasantly surprised to find his uniforms stacked on the floor by his bunk, badly folded and smelling like soap instead of stale sweat. Just having clean clothes has improved his quality of life by a factor of ten, and he smiles the whole time he’s pulling them on no matter how stiff his muscles are.

Down in the kitchen, the guys start clapping as soon as they see him: “Bergy, you’re our hero for finding all that soap!”

Patrice is embarrassed, but he smiles and accepts hugs from everyone while Brad fixes him a late breakfast of cup noodles. After rendered former housepets and vegetables sometimes harvested too early, the overly-salty chicken and dehydrated carrots are like birthday cake, and he eats as slowly as possible to draw out this tiny slice of heaven. Meanwhile his boyfriend disappears and then reappears with the baby in tow, now wearing a real diaper and someone’s undershirt that’s been tied off at the bottom.

“That smells so good,” Brad comments, giving a bottle of formula a thorough shake before feeding it to Lynn.

“Do you want some?” he offers, holding out his spoon.

“No hands.”

“Oh. Right.” Patrice scoops up some noodles and lifts it over to Brad a second time. “There.”

Brad laughs a little bit, but leans over and accepts the food with a grateful hum. “Fuck, that’s so good… no, Bergy, you eat it, you actually earned it.”

“But I feel bad hogging it all to myself. I demand that you split this soup with me.”

“Fine, if you’re gonna be like that…”

So it goes, Brad feeding Lynn and Patrice feeding Brad. The guys all tease them, but they don’t care. Between chirps, Krej insists that it’s Charlie’s turn to do the next twenty thousand loads of laundry, Pasta explains that the reason he inherited all those undershirts is because they were exactly the right size to fit him and besides he donated one to Brad’s mystery baby, and Matt wonders if that hospital disinfectant can be used on the insides of all their boots. Life is good.

And then there’s a small voice coming from the engine bay, echoing even though it’s piled with supplies: “Hello?”

Everyone freezes, and they hear it a second time. All of them share looks, and wordlessly decide that Pasta should go. He vanishes for a moment and then comes back with a seven-year-old girl.

“Is this the right fire station? Do you guys have my sister?”

Patrice looks over at Brad, who’s wearing an unreadable expression.

“What’s your name, kiddo?” Krej asks.

“Anna… do you guys have my sister? It said on the floor to come to the fire station, is this the right fire station?” Then her eyes find Brad, and her whole face lights up. “Aimee!”

Patrice watches Brad’s heart break even as he smiles to Anna. “Yeah, she’s here. We found her by accident and kept her safe… is your mom with you?”

“No. She said if she left and didn’t come back for more than one day, or if she fell asleep and didn’t wake up, then we should go find people. Aimee needs formula when the big arm touches _here_ on the clock.” She points to a Mickey Mouse watch on her left wrist.

“Well…” Brad visibly swallows. “Uh, your mom told you to go find people? We’re people, you know. You can just stay here with us…”

“Are you sure?”

“Marchy, _resources,_ ” Charlie whisper-hisses from across the table.

“Shut the fuck up, Chuckie,” Brad snaps, then goes back to smiling at Anna. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He twists around in his chair - “Here, Pat, hold her for a sec.” - and passes the baby over before getting up. “You hungry, Anna?”

“Yeah. That’s why I put Aimee there, I had to go look for a snack.”

“Okay. Let’s see what we got over here…” He grabs a jar of their bland, home-grown pickles. “How about one of these to start until I can make you something better?”

“Yeah!” she yells enthusiastically, reaching for the jar.

Patrice sighs internally, glancing between the baby in his arms and the girl shadowing Brad around the kitchen while she munches happily on a pickle spear. He already knows he’s now been roped into helping raise _two_ kids.

“So, uh…” Charlie clears his throat. “Guys, resources…”

“Chuckie, shut up!” Brad yells as he rummages the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water. “We can talk about that shit later!”

Kevan strolls into the kitchen right then, back from their roof-garden apparently because he’s covered in dirt. “So… this is a thing, now? Are we just gonna be up to our necks in children by the end of the week?”

Patrice has never heard him sound so bitter before. Apparently he’s still grieving a lot harder than he’s been letting on.

“She came to us,” Pasta answers. “Found Marchy’s note, came to find her sister. Probably there won’t be any more after that.”

“It seems unlikely,” Patrice agrees, trying to placate their friend. “Maybe you should just take a few minutes, go wash up and put on clean clothes. We can do that now, after all.”

“Yeah. Sure.” And he leaves, not exactly stomping but not exactly not stomping, either.

“I’ll talk to him,” Krej decides. “Try to help him be okay with things.”

Brad sits Anna down in his own chair right then with a bowl of meat soup that he hopefully didn’t explain the origin of, then hands her a fork and takes the baby back from Patrice. “Thanks, Bergy. You should probably finish your noodles before they’re completely cold.”

There’s only about two bites left, so he polishes off his food and gets up so that Brad can sit before taking some painkillers and heading for Z’s office. Their captain should probably know what’s going on right now, just in case he couldn’t hear everything.

“Z?” he calls, knocking on the door. No answer. He opens it a crack, even though that’s kind of rude. “Cap? You busy? Something just happened that you should probably know about…”

Finally looking in, Patrice tells himself this isn’t intrusive because technically it’s his and Krej’s office too, being lieutenants. Z’s back is to him, but he looks over for a second.

“What do you need, Pat?”

He briefly explains the situation in the kitchen, as well as everyone’s reactions. “Kevan’s pretty upset, but Krej is going to talk to him soon,” he finishes. “Unfortunately, Charlie’s right. We’ll have to figure out more food now.”

“Yes. Well… I’m sure we can come up with something.”

Patrice immediately closes the door behind him when he hears the minute cracking in his captain’s voice.

“Z… are you okay?” he asks quietly, already knowing the answer.

“Of course.” Finally, he swivels around in his chair and holds something out. “This picture was already old when everything happened, but I think… it would not be a very good idea to try and go home to get other ones. My house is too far away.”

It’s the framed one that’s always lived on Z’s desk, of him with his daughter in their backyard. It’s so perfect that it could be one of those demo photos that comes with the frame when you buy it at the store.

“I’m sorry, Z.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I think… well, right now I think it’s good that I was here. I didn’t bring her to the hospital myself, so I don’t remember her like that. I remember her like this instead, and it’s much nicer that way.”

“Yeah,” Patrice agrees, handing it back. “Brad’s handling it right now, so… you probably won’t have to interfere at all, actually. Not if you don’t want to. He knows what he’s doing and he’s thrilled to suddenly have two daughters.”

“You don’t sound so thrilled,” Z observes, now with a tiny bit of amusement.

“Brad’s such a handful by himself, so for me it’s even worse. I have a boyfriend and two kids, and all three of them have to be taken care of,” Patrice remarks, only half-joking. “And the bastard didn’t even ask me first, he just kind of expects me to help with everything… aren’t couples supposed to talk first before they have babies?”

Thankfully, Z chuckles. “Yes, usually that’s how it’s supposed to go. But I think you love each other enough to make it work out.”

Patrice chokes a little - why “love?” He vaguely remembers saying something about it to his boyfriend several days ago, but… is he really ready to use that particular word? “Love” can be deadly for some people, and he’s scared of it.

“I think…”

He stops, and then he _does_ think some more. He decides that he’s just not ready to _say_ it yet. What else is it, when you sit up with someone all night when they’re dying and talk them through their delirium? Or when they throw up all over themselves and the surrounding floor so you clean everything up and don’t mind? What else is it when you watch them, shivering and sweating and on their way out, and think that you’d die yourself in that second if only they’ll live and not have to suffer? And besides those things, besides even the event of the plague, there was everything before. Back then, Patrice had looked forward to every one of his shifts because he knew Brad would always be there to grin and hug him the second he showed up with his overnight bag. He’d gone to Brad’s apartment and binged Netflix together after the end of a fairly long relationship, and held Brad as tight as he could while Brad dramatically swore up and down to never date again because it never ended well and it just hurt too bad to keep doing it. They weren’t ambulance partners, but they were the best offensive team for structure fires in the entire station, and Patrice had never worried heading into a building because Brad always, _always_ backed him up perfectly.

“What do you think, Pat?” Z asks, breaking him free.

“I think you’re right,” is all he can come up with.

“Good. Then go back over there and get to know your new kids. And don’t worry about me too much, either. I’ll be alright.”

Patrice nods. “Okay.”

The lights go out for the tenth time in two weeks right as he comes into the kitchen, which means Krej immediately jumps up and leaves to go get it started again. Matt and Pasta are arguing about the division of labor regarding the insane volume of hospital linens that still need to be washed and folded. Charlie is frowning and worried, probably about how they’ll feed this seven-year-old who showed up to claim the baby that they also weren’t sure they could feed a few days ago. Kevan is nowhere to be found, and Brad’s describing to Anna how she can get clean because they just found a bunch of soap.

“You wanna go do that? You can wear one of my shirts until your clothes are clean.”

“Okay. I smell really bad.”

“That’s okay, so did we until yesterday,” Brad chuckles, getting up from the chair. “The lights are gonna come back on in a minute, too, so we’ll wait until that happens since the bathroom doesn’t have a window.”

“Maybe she should have one of my shirts instead, it’ll be longer on her,” Patrice suggests.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

The four of them go upstairs to wait, and Anna immediately sits against Brad’s side on the bunk. “Are you gonna leave and not come back, too?”

“No, of course not. I’ll _always_ come back,” Brad promises, shifting his hold of the baby so he can hug Anna one-armed to his flank. “What about your dad, do you know where he is?”

“He got sick a long time ago. Mommy said he went to the doctor. He didn’t come back, either. Are you sure you’ll come back, Marchy?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” The lights come back on. “Ah, there we go. Bath time!”

Patrice ends up donating not only an undershirt but a pair of boxers as well, which ultimately get pinned on one side with a binder clip from the office so that she won’t have to go around holding them up with one hand. Her clothes are put in the wash and given top priority, and she immediately climbs into Patrice’s lap while Brad is trying to get her sister to go down for a nap.

“Will you tell me a story, Bergy?”

“What?” is his well thought out, intelligent answer.

“A story.”

“Um… like a fairy tale?”

“I don’t know. Just any old story.”

Convinced now that she’s doing it for attention, Patrice shuffles her so she’s against his side instead and tries to think.

“Well… okay. Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in Canada. All he wanted to do was be a hockey player. He learned how to skate when he was just four years old, and he played all through school… until one day, he banged his head too hard during a game and so his mom said he couldn’t play anymore. And he was really sad about it. He wasn’t a very good student, either, so he didn’t want to go to college. Instead he became a fireman, and for some reason that he still doesn’t really understand he learned how to speak English and moved to Boston. He made lots of friends there, and he was really happy. Then everyone got sick, but most of his friends were still okay for a really long time.”

“And then what happened?” Anna demands.

“And then, one of his friends got sick, too, and he got scared. So he had to go find, uh, a magic pill to help his friend get better. And it was really hard to find, too, and it took him a little while, but he found it eventually. So he brought it back and for a second it didn’t seem like it would work, but then it did and his friend got better. Now that friend is his boyfriend instead, and he’s even happier despite his boyfriend constantly running off to do stupid things without thinking about them first.” Patrice smiles and looks pointedly at Brad, who’s chewing his lower lip and shaking in an effort not to burst out laughing now that he finally got the baby to sleep. “And now they have two kids.”

“They do? Do they live near here? Are they nice people?”

“Well, that’s up to you, do you think we’re nice people?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she nods. “I don’t have to be all smelly anymore.” She gets up on her knees and pulls him down by his shoulder so she can whisper in his ear. “Is Marchy your boyfriend because you think girls have cooties? All the boys said we had cooties when I was in first grade.”

Now it’s Patrice’s turn to try desperately hard not to break out in hysterics. He gets a grip on himself after a few seconds, though. “Ah. No, Anna, it’s not because girls have cooties. It’s because he’s cute and he’s funny and I like to cuddle him. Someday, when you’re bigger and the world isn’t as bad, you’ll probably meet other people. And then you’ll find a boy or a girl that you really like, who’s cute and funny and good for cuddles.”

“Okay,” she agrees, fully accepting of this idea. He’s so glad, right then, that she’s young enough not to have had any homophobia brainwashed into her. Then she yawns.

“Maybe you should have a nap, too,” Brad suggests.

“But I don’t like naps.”

“But you’re tired,” he smiles, coming over and picking her up even though she’s really too big for him to be doing that. Brad puts her on his bunk and pulls up the sheet. “We’ll be right downstairs, okay? Can you count to a hundred?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. So even if you don’t sleep, I want you to stay right here with your eyes closed, and count back from one hundred each time you breathe. So you breathe in and then out, that’s one hundred, then in and out again is ninety nine, and so on.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeats, fluffing the pillow a little for her.

They pull down the shades and switch the light off, then go downstairs together.

“How is all that so easy for you?” Patrice wonders as they go into the engine bay. He just sits on the floor, still too sore to work, while Brad helps Krej do some organizing.

“What, dealing with kids? My sister has some, and I just like kids anyway. You didn’t do too bad, either. Your little fairy tale about yourself was pretty good,” he snickers.

“That was all I could think of,” he admits. “I don’t know any stories. I don’t know _anything_ about children.”

“You’ll learn,” Brad smiles, not a trace of maliciousness or teasing in the expression. “It’s not… easy, but it’s not always as hard as people say it is, either. I don’t know, Bergy, I always wanted to have kids someday, and… I feel bad for their parents, but I’m glad they found us and not some creep or a pack of dogs or… you know. Anything worse than us. They have a better shot here.”

* * *

“But _why_?” Anna whines again, stomping her foot this time.

“Because you can’t just keep stealing Pat’s undershirts,” Brad chuckles, tossing a roll of duct tape into his backpack. (The crowbar and first aid kit are in Patrice’s pack.) “Plus, you’re gonna get bigger, so you’ll have to have bigger clothes.”

She grabs him around his waist and clings. “But can’t someone else do it?”

“No, they’ve got other stuff to do. Hey, I already promised I’ll come back, okay? And Bergy and Pasta will come back, too. They’ll make sure I come back with them. So you need to help Uncle Krej take care of Aimee, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, okay?”

“Okay,” she grumbles, still not letting go.

Brad gently pries her arms open, then gets on his knees and hugs her. “We’ll be back probably tomorrow night after you’re asleep, so then you’ll wake up the next morning after that and we’ll be here.” He kisses the side of her face. “Not everyone who leaves doesn’t come back, okay? You left Aimee and then came back for her, and then you came and found her here after. So, you left and then came back. I’m going to come back just like you did.”

“Okay,” she finally agrees.

“Good. Alright, we gotta go, but we’ll be back before you know it.” Brad gets back up. “Now give Bergy a hug too, he needs lots of hugs.”

Anna complies and Patrice grins as he puts his arms around her, letting her think she’s helping him by doing this. They follow Pasta down to the kitchen after that and put folded duffle bags into their packs, and then each of them takes two bottles of water and a “box lunch.” Box lunches don’t actually come in a box; it’s a nice word for potatoes, carrots and dog meat diced and put in a jar with the meat’s fat and juice. Then each jar is stuck in a pot of water and boiled for two hours to kill whatever might be living in the meat. A box lunch is great for hikes, it can go for at least two meals, but it’s so slimy and bland that it usually goes for four meals because the firefighter eating it can’t choke down more than a few forkfuls at a time.

“What if there’s no clothes?” Pasta questions five minutes into their journey.

“I don’t know why there wouldn’t be,” Brad answers. “Kids’ clothes aren’t really essential survival supplies for most people. They’re bulky and annoying to carry when you’ve got better shit to pack like food or whatever. Probably in two apartment buildings we’ll have more than enough shit in a bunch of sizes.”

“If you say so, Marchy.”

“I do say so,” Brad grins.

It’s a two and a half hour walk to find an apartment building they’re sure they haven’t already ransacked for supplies in the last sixteen months. The sun starts beating down on them long before they get there, so they sit in the entrance and have water before they get started.

“Someone puked in my food,” Brad comments as he grimaces at his box lunch. “Oh, wait, that _is_ the food.”

“Marchy you say that same thing every time we eat during a scavenge, it gets old,” Pasta complains before taking a bite and audibly gagging.

There’s no point in opening three jars of the same food at once, so they just pass around the one Brad was given and take turns having bites of it. Patrice’s first bite of box lunch is an entire ball of fat with just one sliver of carrot stuck in there, and he almost chokes trying to swallow it.

“Oh my god,” he coughs. “Oh my god. This is the worst batch I’ve tasted yet.”

“Here, have a potato.” Brad holds out his fork and Patrice leans over to eat off it. “Better?”

“A little bit. It still tastes like burnt turnout boots.”

“Burnt turnout boots would be an improvement,” Pasta gripes.

“Anyone else miss takeout right now?” Brad asks. “Doesn’t matter which kind, Chinese, Thai, pizza, whatever.”

“So much,” Pasta nods. “There was this one Thai place I really liked, but it was kind of sad too because I would go there between girlfriends. Like, ‘Oh, David, you’re such a nice guy and I like you a lot, but…’ And it was always fucking that, man! What do chicks have against nice guys? So then I would go there to make myself feel better, because they had like, the best food.”

“Maybe it was your teeth,” Brad snickers, capping the jar and drinking the rest of his water bottle in one long gulp. “You should’a got it fixed, bro.”

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t afford that shit on city pay. It counts as cosmetic or something.”

“Too bad.”

“But seriously, what do women have against nice guys? Nobody ever wanted a nice guy for some reason,” Pasta whines.

“Couldn’t tell you, man, I never dated women,” Brad shrugs. “There was this one time - Bergy, you remember Mark?”

“Mark was the last guy you were seeing before the plague, right?”

“Yeah. So Mark, he was a cop, actually. And get this, he broke up with me after a fucking _year_ because _my_ job was too dangerous. My fucking job was too dangerous for _him,_ when he was the one getting fucking shot at by gang members and shit. Can you believe that shit? After that I decided to stop dating.”

“Oh, well, that clearly stuck,” Pasta snorts, grinning at Patrice.

“Well, the circumstances changed,” Patrice smiles.

They get back up from the floor and start searching. Scavenging is such a brain-numbing activity, the constant going through closets and drawers but never finding anything useful. As exhausting as their major clear-out of the hospital was, at least it was more than worth it. Going through empty apartments got old for him a long time ago. There’s nothing else to do during these excursions except talk about stupid things, which means Patrice listens without participating as his boyfriend and Pasta take shots at each other and talk about sex.

“So like… what’s it like to be with another guy instead?”

“Bro, you’ve known me for like, how many years? How have you not asked me that until now?” Brad laughs.

“C’mon, man, just answer, I gotta know.”

“Why, you in the market?”

“No, but I’m really fucking bored and there’s nothing else to talk about.”

“Okay. So like - I’ve never had sex with a chick. That’s probably not a huge shock, but whatever. So I can’t do like, a direct comparison. Except for this one thing. I got a blow job from this woman once in the back of a club, because I was really, really drunk and pissed off at whichever ex-boyfriend had just dumped me, so I was like ‘fuck this might as well try it.’ And… blow jobs, at least, are better when you get them from other men. Nobody knows how your dick feels like another guy, you know?”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense.” Patrice looks over his shoulder at exactly the right time for Pasta to make a face. “But like… uh, what about… y’know, the other thing? Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Not if you do it right,” Brad grins. “You really wanna hear about this, bro? I can give you all the details, but it might freak you out.”

“I mean… wait, which kind of details?”

“All kinds of details. You really wanna know?”

“Say no, Pasta,” Patrice advises.

“Uh…”

“Bradley, stop. He doesn’t want to know.”

“Fine, buzzkill… so, my turn: what’s it like having sex with girls?”

“Um, really nice… I miss it a lot,” Pasta answers. “They’re all nice and soft and they usually smell good.”

“Are you saying I smell bad, Pasta?” Patrice laughs.

“Yes.”

“Wow! Look at you over there, insulting my boyfriend, I should beat you up for that!”

“If I wanted him beaten up I could do it myself, Marchy. Besides, we have soap now, so none of us smells that bad anymore.”

“Hey, look at this, you think she’ll like this?” Brad asks, holding up a light blue shirt with a unicorn on it.

“Uh… maybe? I don’t know anything about kids. I guess we’ll find out, huh? It’s not like we can just take her to JC Penny’s, either.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Anyway, you should really start learning, we have kids now so you should figure out what you’re doing,” Brad recommends, stuffing the shirt into his pack.

“Bradley.”

“Yeah?”

“I know _absolutely nothing_ about raising children. And you kind of volunteered me to help you parent those two girls without actually asking me first. Demanding that I just summon this knowledge out of thin air is the exact opposite of helpful.”

“You guys want me to leave so that you can fight about this in private?” Pasta asks.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Patrice nods before Brad can answer.

“Wait, we’re fighting?” Brad asks, but to his credit he looks genuinely confused.

“I don’t know, I’ve never fought with you before.”

“Yeah you have! What about that boy my second year in the station and I ended up in the hospital because I gave him my mask? You came into my hospital room _while I was sleeping_ and started ripping me a new one!”

“Yes, but if you remember, that was because you did something monumentally stupid that almost got your ass killed,” Patrice points out. “And anyway, you did the same thing to me when I punctured my lung, and when I broke my foot, and all the other times I got hurt on the job.”

“Well… yeah, but that’s because I had a thing for you since pretty much the day we met and you kept scaring me by getting injured in structure fires. Plus when you broke your foot, you were already being a dumbass because you weren’t wearing your fucking turnouts.”

“Yeah, okay. We’re not talking about that, though, are we? We’re talking about your new kids.”

“ _Our_ new kids.”

“Right.”

“Why are you so scared, Bergy? You’ll be a great dad!”

“No, Marchy, you’re a great dad. I’m a fire lieutenant who didn’t realize my relationships kept failing because I was gay and couldn’t figure it out until after the plague happened and you almost died. I’m oblivious and completely unperceptive outside of emergencies.”

“First, thanks for saying I’m a great dad, that makes me feel really good,” Brad smiles. “Second, you can learn. Just watch what I do and then do that, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. You just need some practice.”

“I never thought about having kids until you found Aimee in that building, Marchy.”

“Well, I guess you have to start thinking about it…” Brad’s smile falls flat. “Look, Bergy, if you really don’t want any part of this, then I won’t make you. I get that you’re freaked out and shit, and like you keep saying you don’t know much about kids. I just… I wish you would do this with me, because it’s something I always wanted and so I want to share it with you, too, because it makes me happy.”

Patrice feels awful, now, not just for making Brad feel bad about this but also for letting him down. He thinks back to what his captain said. _I think you love each other enough to make it work out._ He goes across the room to pull his boyfriend into a hug.

“Thank you for sharing this with me, Bradley. I’ll do my best, I promise. But you’re going to have to teach me what to do, because I really just don’t know anything.”

“I’ll teach you,” Brad agrees as he hugs back.

“Hey! Are you guys done fighting?” Pasta yells from what sounds like an entire apartment away.

“Yes, Pasta, you can come back,” Patrice chuckles.

“Good! ’Cause I found something that’s probably good…”

“Yeah, bring it over!”

It turns out to be baby books, the kind made of hard, glossy cardboard for naming shapes and colors and things. As well as half a box of diapers and a plastic teething ring. “This stuff is helpful, right? It was in a room with a crib, so…”

“Yeah, we need all of this shit, great job man,” Brad grins, dumping it into one of their backpacks. “Where’d you find it?”

“Across the hall.”

“Great, can you check the kitchen cabinets for formula and bottles? If you do find bottles, make sure they’re the normal-looking ones and not the ones that need collapsing plastic liners, okay? We can’t really use that kind, we’d run out of the little plastic things.”

“Yeah, sure,” Pasta nods, clearly with no idea what Brad’s talking about. To be fair, though, Patrice isn’t really sure what Brad’s talking about, either.

* * *

Eight floors and the rest of Brad’s box lunch later, they return to the station with more stuff than they should probably be carrying at once. It’s ten at night, but they immediately start sorting things out: clothes to launder, a single container of unopened formula that gets put with the others on top of the fridge, four baby bottles to be washed with the rest of the dishes, and books. Lots of books. Not just baby books, but also - luckily for Patrice - a book _about_ babies as well, a couple Magic Treehouse books that Anna will probably want read to her, and plenty of fiction novels for the guys. In that last category, there’s everything from Game Of Thrones to trashy romance stories that are nothing but softcore porn.

The books don’t need to be washed, so they’re piled on the kitchen table for the time being and the three of them head upstairs. Patrice sits on Brad’s bunk to pull off his boots while Brad stretches up to the top bunk over Patrice’s head and reaches out to shake.

“Hey, we’re here,” he whispers.

Patrice looks and sees Anna’s small arms go around Brad’s neck. “You came back,” comes an excited but sleepy whisper.

“Yeah, see? I promised, and I did,” Brad grins. “And Bergy and Pasta came back, too, just like I said.”

“Yay!”

“Alright, you can go back to sleep now, just figured you’d wanna know we got back safe.”

“Thanks, Marchy.”

“You’re welcome. Night, sweetie.”

“Night, Marchy.”

Brad sits next to Patrice and strips to his boxers and undershirt, then goes over to check on the baby for a second before coming back to lay down. Previously, Patrice had occupied the next bunk over on the bottom, but most days they squish together on Brad’s bunk and cuddle each other off to sleep. Tonight is no different. What is different is that this time, when it’s six in the morning and Aimee needs to be fed, Brad doesn’t just disentangle like usual and let Patrice go back to sleep.

“Hey, get up, Pat.”

“Huh?” he grunts, rubbing his eyes. “Need something?”

“You have to learn, remember? Come on, up. This morning you’re gonna learn how to make a bottle.”

“Ugh, not now, Marchy, my feet hurt from last night and I’m still nauseous from that shitty box lunch,” Patrice whines, not moving from his back…

…that is, until Brad grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him up. “Come, on, you said you’d learn.”

“God dammit,” Patrice grumbles, straightening out his shirt and following his boyfriend.

Patrice holds Aimee while Brad describes each step: this much water, test a couple drops on the inside of your wrist, make sure it’s thoroughly shaken, then feed. Try to keep the bottle at this and such of an angle. How to burp her after, make sure to put a towel or something on your shoulder first. Which means Patrice is standing there against the counter in his underwear, feeding a baby for the first time while his boyfriend drinks a water bottle with Charlie’s name on it and then goes back to bed.

“Your daddy is a jackass sometimes,” Patrice comments, watching Aimee drink the formula. “He just left me here while he gets to go sleep…” Unsurprisingly, she has nothing to say on the issue, she only drinks her breakfast without a care. “That’s okay, though. I love him despite his best efforts. He’s the one who found you and takes care of you, so I’m sure you can relate…”

It occurs to him right then how stupid he probably looks talking to an infant, so he stops doing it in case one of the guys comes down early and sees him. At least when the bottle is empty he remembers to do the burping, then takes Aimee back upstairs and puts her in the improvised crib. Brad rolls over and kisses him when he lays down again.

“You’re not going to ask how I did?” Patrice whispers.

“Don’t need to. I know you did good.”

They both almost sleep through breakfast, but Anna helpfully grabs Brad’s shoulders and shakes them both awake just in time. “Bergy, Marchy, get up! We gotta eat!”

“Who left all this shit on the table?” Kevan gripes as fried potatoes and their last bag of stale egg noodles get served up by Matt.

“Probably the same dick who drank one of my waters,” Charlie answers, glaring at Brad.

“Why do you guys always assume it’s me?”

“Because it always is you,” Krej answers.

“He has a point, Marchy,” Patrice chuckles.

“Who’s side are you on?”

“Right now? Theirs. Because I watched you leave those books on the table and I also watched you drink Charlie’s water even though it clearly had his name on it.”

“Fine! Whatever. You can have one of mine as payback, Chuckie.”

“I was going to even if you didn’t want to let me,” Charlie replies matter-of-factly.

“Uh, guys?” Matt interrupts, holding the spoon up. “Nobody eat the noodles, they’re bad.”

“Like bad how?” Krej asks.

“I think I found some mold…”

Patrice leans over to look and snorts. “Just ‘some,’ Gryz? How didn’t you notice this while you were cooking?”

“The damn generator turned off again and the window in here is tiny, I couldn’t see anything!”

Patrice rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair, only to immediately panic and jump to his feet. “Anna, spit that out!” he yells, waiting to be obeyed before yanking her out of her own seat. “How much did you eat?”

“A few bites,” she answers, confused.

“Okay, it’ll be okay, come on.” He brings her out to the engine bay because he knows there’s buckets there and grabs one. “Alright, honey, I know this is gross but I need you to throw up for me, okay? That food was bad and if you don’t you could get really sick.”

“But I don’t feel sick,” she protests.

“I know, but you’ll get sick later,” he answers, kneeling them both on the floor by the bucket. “Come on, this is really important.”

Anna sticks her face into the bucket and makes noises in her throat, then coughs. “I can’t do it! Nothing will come up!”

“Okay, it’s okay, just take a couple deep breaths and I’ll help you. Deep breaths.” He puts a hand on her back to comfort her and makes sure the bucket is close enough. “Okay. Close your eyes, this won’t take long.” And he jams his thumb into the back of her throat.

Patrice has never felt bad about doing any potentially life-saving procedures for patients before. But this isn’t a patient - it’s his boyfriend’s kid. For that, he feels awful, even knowing how necessary it is.

Anna starts crying after, and he expects her to be upset with him. Instead, she whines, “I’m sorry I couldn’t throw up, Bergy!”

“It’s okay, _ma minou,_ you don’t have to be sorry.” He pushes the bucket away and hugs her, wondering why he just called her “kitten.” He remembers one of his friends’ moms calling them all ducklings when he was really small. Maybe Brad was right, and he will get used to this parenting thing.

Anna bawls into his shirt for awhile, and about the time Patrice’s legs are cramping up from crouching is when Brad appears wearing a concerned expression.

“You two okay?”

“Yeah, we should be,” Patrice nods. He scoops up Anna even though she’s really too big to be carried and the three of them leave the engine bay.

* * *

Everything is fine after the noodle incident - there are no lasting psychological repercussions for Anna, who draws pictures on the paper they recovered from the hospital while she’s not following someone around learning to roof-farm vegetables or making Brad read her stories. (After a couple days he runs out of material and starts reading her the first chapter of _Essentials of Firefighting and Fire Department Operations, Sixth Edition_ ).

Well… everything is fine for about a week.

Because Patrice is standing in the kitchen feeding the baby, who keeps grabbing for his ears and nose, while Anna is sitting at the table scribbling. She seems tired this morning even though it’s long past breakfast, and after a minute she sets down the pen.

Her eyes find his - “Daddy, I don’t feel so good…” - and then she puts her head down on the table and loses consciousness.

Patrice is forced to pause for a second because there’s still a seven-month-old in his arms so he can’t immediately run over to give aid. Instead he bolts for the engine bay, because he thinks that’s where his boyfriend went: “MARCHY! Get over here and help me!”

It’s not Brad who shows up two seconds later - it’s Kevan. “What’s going on, Bergy?”

“Where’s Brad?!”

“Out back with Krej filling the generator…”

“Here, take the baby!” There’s no time for him to consider his friend’s grief as he shoves Aimee into the other man’s arms. Patrice goes back over to the table and gently lift’s Anna’s head. “Oh shit, fuck…”

Her nose is dripping blood onto the paper and her skin is hot to the touch. He sprints out into the engine bay for the pile of medical supplies, which means digging through three boxes until he finds pediatric venous catheters, saline, and Tylenol. In the back of his mind, he wonders how Anna is showing plague symptoms, because she didn’t get hurt like Brad did. Mostly, though, he’s focusing on carrying her and the supplies upstairs to the bunks. She’s already starting to sweat so he puts a towel down for her to lay on, then crushes two hundred mikes of Tylenol into the saline bag. He swipes her elbow with the alcohol pad, inserts the catheter, and then starts crying as he’s hanging the bag from the upper bunk with a large binder clip.

More than half the plague victims he bussed in his ambulance back then were children, who had even worse complications and symptoms than the adults. Often, their blood vessels would be abnormally fragile, making it difficult to administer medications as well as causing the nosebleeds to be almost impossible to stop (along with frequent bruising). He wonders if this means possible internal bleeding in the future, too.

“Plague?” comes Kevan’s voice from the doorway, unusually flat and cold.

“Looks like it.” Patrice sniffs inward hard, wipes his eyes on his arm, and takes a breath. “Can you find Marchy for me?”

“Why are you freaking out? We saved your boyfriend, we can save her too.”

“Were you on ambulance duty at all when the world was ending?” Patrice demands. “It’s worse for kids. Four of them arrested while Pasta and I were driving them, and three couldn’t be revived. I’m assuming the fourth one died in the hospital like all the other ones.”

Kevan’s not impressed. “No, I was in one of those hospitals watching my son die. You used Tylenol and not aspirin, right? Aspirin exacerbates the blood loss.”

“No, it’s Tylenol.” Patrice wipes his face again. “Can you give Aimee to Brad and then help me? I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You’re doing fine,” Kevan answers in a flat tone of voice that sounds forced. “And the second he finds out about this, he’s going to panic, too. Do you really think that’ll help anything? I’ll give Aimee to Z, and then I’ll come help you get things under control. After that, you can sit in a corner and cry with your boyfriend.”

“Fine. Go do that.” It would be nice if Kevan wasn’t acting like Patrice is the reason his son died, but at least he’s going to come back and help.

The thing is, Kevan’s a perfectly average medic. He’s not talented but overlooked like Krej was, and he’s not constantly breaking rules but somehow getting good results like Brad did. But, he’s still a great team mate and for once Patrice doesn’t have to be the leader. Kevan does vitals, adjusts the rate of flow on the fluid line, and makes Patrice crush up more Tylenol into IV bags. He writes down the time and amount of medication dropped, and points out that a chuck might be a good idea because sick children are prone to “accidents.”

“You should put a bucket at the side of the bunk, too. That way she can roll over and puke in it if she needs to.”

“How did this even happen?” Patrice wonders quietly.

“Maybe it’s just going to happen to all survivors. We’re infected and just waiting our turns to break out in symptoms.”

“Hopefully that’s not it… imagine if five of us went down at once. Brad’s the only one who’s had it before and he couldn’t possibly take care of everyone at the same time.”

“I wouldn’t let Brad take care of me, I’d take my chances with the plague.”

“Why? He’s a good medic.”

“He cut off a woman’s leg with a sawzall once.”

“She was already dead and they got her to the ED in time for a crash C-section, the baby lived. I would’ve done the same thing. Besides, EMS headquarters, the chief, the deputy chief, and Z all punished him for it after, and the hospital filed a complaint against him.”

“Whatever. I’m sure Charlie told you about the seizures, right?”

“Yeah, I asked him about Jake when Brad was sick…”

“Well, it’s different for children. Febrile seizures will start happening at 38 degrees and they’ll keep happening over and over again. As the fever gets worse, the seizures happen more often and last longer. Someone’s going to have to watch her all the time until she’s below 37 degrees… lorazepam is probably a good idea, so we’ll have to keep notes posted on when that gets dropped into her fluid line. And the person watching her can’t always be you or Marchy, one of us will have to take over for you every few hours. Don’t look at me like that, he was sick last month and I saw you collapse from exhaustion after clearing the hospital.”

“You know he won’t sleep until she’s better.”

“Yeah, and neither will you, but that won’t stop any of us from trying to make you. Anyway… go grab a vial of lorazepam and some needles, the seizures aren’t that dangerous by themselves but they’ll be really miserable for her.”

Patrice has to go back to the engine bay for that, and once he’s found it enough time has passed for Brad and Krej to have finished up with the generator. Which means they’re both in the kitchen watching him at he’s about to scramble for the stairs.

“What’s going on, Pat?”

He wants to lie to his boyfriend, because he knows Kevan was right and Brad will immediately freak out. But Patrice is also aware that he’s a terrible liar.

“Plague,” is all he says before he going back to the bunks. He can’t lie, but he also can’t make himself say _the seven-year-old you’ve gotten emotionally attached to over the last two weeks is horribly ill._ Besides, Brad is already following him and will find out in about three seconds anyway.

It turns out that not being able to lie to Brad is even less of a good thing than he thought, because this ends up with him repeatedly shoving his boyfriend away while Kevan drops lorazepam into Anna’s fluid line; Brad is absolutely losing it, shouting that they should let him help, demanding to know how this happened. He’s every hysterical parent Patrice has seen since first becoming an EMT all those years ago, completely irrational and refusing to be placated.

“Marchy if you don’t knock it off I’m going to hold you down and inject you with Ativan,” Kevan threatens as he’s gathering up the trash.

“But - she - I - what the fuck, why won’t you let me help?” Brad yells as Patrice yanks him back by his belt for the sixth time.

“Because you’re flipping your shit, and everything’s been done already. So you’re going to either get fucking tranquilized right now, or you can go sit _quietly_ and watch for febrile seizures. Here, Bergy.” A sheet of paper is passed over. “Tylenol in four hours, Ativan in six.” And he leaves.

All Brad’s protective rage drains and he drops to his knees on the spot, hands on his head. “But how did this happen? She didn’t get hurt…”

The scar on Brad’s left arm healed over a long time ago, but it’s still pink and noticeable under the dusting of dark hair. Patrice just kneels as well in order to hug him, not saying anything because there’s really no answer to be given. Brad immediately collapses into his arms, and for a long, horrible moment there’s silence. Brad, undoubtedly, is running around in circles mentally, wondering why his little girl is sick. Patrice is divided equally between that same thought and the realization that when Anna passed out in the kitchen, she’d called him “daddy.” Maybe she was confused and mistook him for her biological father, who was long dead. Or maybe she thought he was Brad, because most of the time she’s seen Brad feeding Aimee. There’s no way she used that word knowing it was Patrice. (The thought makes him… inexplicably sad.) The title should belong to Brad now, anyway.

“It’s going to be okay,” Patrice promises, not sure if he’s telling the truth. “We made you get better, after all, and now we don’t have to go running off to loot a hospital. It probably won’t even take that long.”

“But how did she get sick?” Brad wonders. “Nothing even happened… she was fine yesterday… Pat… why did this happen?”

“I don’t know, Marchy. It’s going to be okay,” he repeats. Patrice kisses the top of Brad’s head. “It’ll be okay. We can put vegetables in the food processor for her to eat until her temperature’s back down just like we did for you. When you need to sleep, one of the guys will sit up and watch for us. For right now we’ll just stay here and wait.”

“I didn’t… do this, though.” Brad points limply. “I wasn’t out cold. I barely fucking slept at all, right? Why’s she unconscious?”

“It’s different for children. And you… you did sleep, sometimes, usually after I told you to first. It’s probably better, she’ll save energy by sleeping and get better faster. That could be part of why you got so bad, you didn’t sleep enough until we brought back the meds.”

“You talked to me the whole time.”

“Yeah.”

“I just want to talk to her, too. Like, so she knows I’m here and shit. Even when I was completely fucking out of it and thought I was somewhere else, it helped a lot when I knew you were there with me.”

“I know, Marchy. But we should let her wake up on her own, okay? It’ll help if she can sleep for awhile.”

Brad is crying a little bit, which Patrice expected. He decides not to follow suit no matter how much he wants to, because one of them has to be at least marginally stable right now. So Patrice just pulls Brad in close, rocking him, rubbing his back. Even after a world-ending plague, Brad’s still so sensitive, still so easily wounded by things. No matter how many times he’d gone through it prior, he’d always been raw and distressed whenever one of his relationships failed, and Patrice would inevitably turn up at his apartment with junk food and The Speech: _just tell me how I can help make it better, if you need anything you know I’m always here for you, Marchy._ (Which, in hindsight, probably has something to do with why Brad fell in love with him in the first place.)

“It’s going to be okay,” Patrice whispers for the hundredth time. He kind of believes it, at least logically. They saved his boyfriend, after all, so they should be able to do this, too. But he also remembers how he felt when Brad was sick, a crushing mix of worthlessness and desperation, looking for anything, _anything,_ that would fix the situation.

“Shouldn’t there be ice packs?” Brad hiccups. “I remember ice packs…”

“Not unless her temperature keeps going up, we caught it early so we should be able to keep things under control with the Tylenol. And we don’t actually have any at the moment, we’re going to have to make some just in case.”

Finally, they get off the floor and go sit on the next bunk over to watch her.

“How did it feel for you?” Brad whispers.

“When you were sick?”

“Yeah.”

Patrice sighs. “I was so scared. I wanted… I wanted to bring you to a hospital or something, I wanted there to be someone who really knew what they were doing so that they could make you get better. Obviously there wasn’t anyone, but that’s what I was thinking about at first. Then for awhile I was trying to convince myself that it wasn’t the plague, that it was something else. Mostly I kept being scared. I thought I was going to lose you, especially when we got back from the hospital and your fever spiked.” Incredibly, he finds himself chuckling a little. “After we gave you the Tylenol you still slept for almost two days, and when you didn’t wake up I was losing my shit. So the guys said I could either take a lorazepam or they’d sit on me until I passed out from exhaustion.”

“Are you going to make me do that?”

“No. I’m just going to sit here and wait with you. You don’t need benzodiazepines right now.”

Brad nods. “I hope it doesn’t take too long…”

“It’ll probably only be a couple of days. You were down for six, but we didn’t have any NSAIDs for you until day four… it’s going to be okay, Marchy. I promise.”

* * *

Mercifully for Brad’s sanity, between the constant hydration of an IV and the consistent use of Tylenol, Anna’s fever breaks in three days. The biggest issue now is the weakness; it took Brad over a month to fully recover, and for the first week and a half he couldn’t even get from his bunk to the stairs without collapsing. With Anna, it’s different. They can just carry her everywhere.

“But I wanna do it myself,” she whines as Patrice scoops her up out of bed to bring her for lunch.

“You can soon,” he assures her. “It won’t take that long.” Then he pauses a couple feet from the stairs. “Can I ask you something, honey?”

“Yeah.”

“When you got sick, before you fell asleep on the table, were you confused a little bit?”

“No. I was just really sleepy and I didn’t feel good.”

“Okay, because you asked for your dad.”

“No I didn’t,” she argues, making a face. Then she looks nervous. “Do you not want to be my new daddy, Bergy?”

“I - of course I do,” he stammers, utterly shocked. “I just thought… maybe you were a little confused, and you thought I was someone else. Maybe your real dad… or Marchy.”

“No, I knew it was you,” she informs him, leaving no room for argument.

Patrice wonders, as he carries Anna downstairs, how he should approach this topic with his boyfriend. He doesn’t think he deserves this, but apparently that’s not up to him. Marchy might feel hurt when he finds out, and Patrice honestly won’t blame him for it if he does. There’s going to have to be a discussion.

Lunch is pretty quiet, but that’s not a good thing. Mostly the quiet comes from the awkward tension: Kevan is very obviously jealous of the fact that someone else’s child survived the plague when his didn’t, and he makes no effort to hide it, glaring sideways at Brad the whole meal. Patrice looks at Krej - _Can you talk to him about this for me?_ \- and Krej looks back - _Yeah, I’ll see what I can do._ On the other end of the spectrum of emotion, Z is clearly caught between relief and sadness like always; he’s glad Anna made it, he’s glad they know Brad’s recovery wasn’t a fluke and they’re able to beat back whatever this disease really is, but he still misses his own daughter and wishes she could’ve been saved. Meanwhile Patrice is mostly just overwhelmed that he’s now been officially assigned the role of parent by this girl, and he doesn’t understand why she picked him instead of Brad.

After a bland meal of squirrel soup and under-ripe vegetables, Anna and the baby are taken back upstairs for a nap and Patrice pulls Brad aside: “There’s something you should know, Marchy…”

Brad listens in unusual silence as he explains. Unsurprisingly, he does look a little hurt by the end.

“Did she say anything else?” he asks eventually.

“No.” Patrice wishes he had a better answer. “No, she didn’t. I even thought maybe she was delirious and mistook me for you when it happened, but she said she knew it was me. I don’t know why, either. It should be you instead.”

Brad, at least, isn’t petty and jealous by nature, but that’s only a small consolation when Patrice can see all over his face how sad he is about it. “Well… who knows what her reasoning is. I mean, kids have different logic from adults. I guess there’s something about you that she likes better, it’s not like, random or anything. But, uh, since she did pick you, you need to not let her down…” Brad visibly swallows and looks sideways, to the wall. “Maybe that’s what it is. I did something.”

“Marchy…”

“No, it’s okay,” he insists, shaking his head.

It’s clearly not okay, but Patrice has no idea what he can say to make it better, so he just pulls Brad into a hug and they stay there for a long time. Brad’s really bad at handling rejection anyway, but this is probably a whole new level of hell for him. And it makes Patrice feel so awful, because he can’t do anything to fix it no matter how much he wants to, he can only offer love and affection when that’s clearly not good enough here.

Matt volunteers to sit by the stairs and keep an ear out for Aimee, which means they’re free to go next door to the cop shop and work on bolting containers outside the windows to catch more rain. It’s a tedious and fairly difficult job - Brad goes up the ladder with a hammer drill to bore holes in the cinderblock and brick walls for the 55-gallon drums and plastic boxes to be bolted to, while Patrice spots him and tries not to trip over the network of car batteries and cannibalized extension cords powering said hammer drill. It’s not working from a ladder that makes things hard for Brad so much as the awkwardness of trying to affix containers to a wall three stories off the ground. At least it seems to be distracting his boyfriend, though.

Except that it turns out not to be distracting Brad, after all.

“What do you think I did?” he asks as he comes down off the ladder for some more fasteners and a drum.

“Huh?”

“I must’ve done something, it’s the only thing I can think of. Maybe I just paid too much attention to Aimee instead of her…”

“Marchy, it’s been less than three weeks since you met her. There’s probably some kind of psychological… something going on, because both her parents disappeared as far as she knows so she’s just clinging to someone, completely irrationally. I don’t think you did or didn’t do anything to make this happen.”

Brad just looks at him, heartbroken: “No, I probably did something.” And then gets back to work.

* * *

The next night, though, there’s a plot twist with Anna that neither of them thought of.

Because it’s after dinner and after evening chores for the guys, and Anna wants more of the firefighting textbook read to her now that her sister is asleep. Until now, Brad’s been the one doing the reading, but he just eyes the object on the windowsill with a look of distress and then turns to Patrice.

“I think you should do it, Pat.”

“Why?” Anna wonders, beating him to it. “You always read.”

“Well… he’s your dad, now. He should do it.”

Anna makes a face at Brad, clearly thinking something along the lines of _grown-ups are so stupid sometimes._ “No he’s not.” She points to illustrate her next words - “He’s ‘daddy,’ you’re ‘dad.’ Then it’s not confusing.”

Patrice and Brad both gawk, first at her, then at each other.

“Wait, what?” Brad finally asks.

Anna huffs out a breath, downright annoyed at them now. “It’s like… um, how my grandparents did it? ’Cause there was grammie and grandpa, then grandma and granddad. That way you know who you’re talking to.”

Oh. So apparently it wasn’t her picking one of them over the other one, she just has a way to separate which one of them she’s referring to. After a second, Brad cracks up, covering his mouth with a hand to stifle the giggles with relief bright in his eyes. Patrice can’t help following suit, hugging Brad one-armed from the side and kissing his temple even through the laughter. Anna just looks frustrated and after almost a full minute of this she demands that Brad sit down and read to her. Patrice settles on the next bunk over to listen in as Brad flips open the textbook, and somehow life makes sense again.

**Author's Note:**

> Going off the idea I had in the original fic that this plague was engineered to react badly with certain antibiotics, penicillin is cultured from a specific food mold, so when Anna ate the moldy noodles it activated the biological warfare agent already present in her body. And again, there's no way these guys would've been able to figure that out, especially since they (wrongly) assume Brad got sick as a result of being injured.
> 
> Please leave comments.


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